my hard drive is beeping

Hi,
I have an ibm deskstar 80gig drive. I have been
reading a bit and realize ibm drives are crap, but i am
wondering if my drive is dieing. I recorded some of
the beeps herehttp://www.orderbuttons.com/files/beeps.mp3

i have noticed that if i want to access something off
the drive, there will be a pause sometimes in say a
folder opening, I will hear the beep and then
the file, folder will open.

I am just gonna get a new drive incase but are
there any thoughts on this?

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Deskstars are also known as Deathstars.
Back up your data.
Search google using the model number of the drive for better info.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:54:59 -0600, chuck <> wrote in
24hoursupport.helpdesk:
>Hi,
> I have an ibm deskstar 80gig drive. I have been
>reading a bit and realize ibm drives are crap, but i am
>wondering if my drive is dieing. I recorded some of
>the beeps here
>http://www.orderbuttons.com/files/beeps.mp3
>
>i have noticed that if i want to access something off
>the drive, there will be a pause sometimes in say a
>folder opening, I will hear the beep and then
>the file, folder will open.
>
>I am just gonna get a new drive incase but are
>there any thoughts on this?
>
>Thanks,
>Chuck

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chuck wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an ibm deskstar 80gig drive. I have been
> reading a bit and realize ibm drives are crap, but i am
> wondering if my drive is dieing. I recorded some of
> the beeps here
> http://www.orderbuttons.com/files/beeps.mp3
>
> i have noticed that if i want to access something off
> the drive, there will be a pause sometimes in say a
> folder opening, I will hear the beep and then
> the file, folder will open.
>
> I am just gonna get a new drive incase but are
> there any thoughts on this?
>
> Thanks,
> Chuck

Wow. Google searches turn up mainly hate-mail about these things.
So, it seems that the BIOS for these are AMI, and I swiped this post
from another newsgroup. I *think* it pertains to your model....
(source: http://tinyurl.com/3mclx)

chuck wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an ibm deskstar 80gig drive. I have been
> reading a bit and realize ibm drives are crap, but i am
> wondering if my drive is dieing. I recorded some of
> the beeps here
> http://www.orderbuttons.com/files/beeps.mp3
>
Ah yes, that really sounds familiar. From 3 deathstar drives I used at home,
2 have died that way (30 ... 40 GB) after quite a short lifespan, and the
last one a few days ago.
The good news is, most of the times they don't die suddenly (like one 60GB
maxtor did on me), so you can still make your backup.
Take precaution:
- NOT stress that drive anymore if you want to preserve your data.
- HURRY buy a new one (and take care of bios limitations if it's a older
computer and the drive must be bootable)
- place the new drive inside your box, maybe temporarily disconnect one of
your cd drives, but keep one
- take care of correct jumper settings for that purpose, and - when using
the "80wire" cables and udma66/100/133 - that the master drive HAS to sit
at the opposite end of the ide cable, NOT in the middle. Actually, my box
has harddrives as slaves, and works fine.
- Use a ghost disk or drive image, or a knoppix cd to "clone" the drive.
That way it's accessed in a straight way without much head moving back and
forth, with a good chance to complete.
- if ghost complains and stalls, there are some commandline switches to
overcome bad sectors, use /help to discover.

I had a lot of trouble with these drives. I had about 6 of them replaced in
less than a two year period. The IBM Hard Drive division was bought over by
Hitachi some time ago. Here is the link to download the Drive Fitness Test
software which when run will tell you if the drive is faulty. It will give
you the serial number and model number etc. If the drive is faulty it will
give you an error code which you need to send to get a returns number to
have the drive replaced. Get a backup of your drive as soon as possible.
There used to be a 3 year warranty on the IBM drives but then they changed
it at some stage to 1 year. When you run the software take a note of the
serial and model numbers and error code if any. When you go to their site
and fill out the details they will tell you if the drive is still under
warranty or not.

"chuck" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
> I have an ibm deskstar 80gig drive. I have been
> reading a bit and realize ibm drives are crap, but i am
> wondering if my drive is dieing. I recorded some of
> the beeps here
> http://www.orderbuttons.com/files/beeps.mp3
>
> i have noticed that if i want to access something off
> the drive, there will be a pause sometimes in say a
> folder opening, I will hear the beep and then
> the file, folder will open.
>
> I am just gonna get a new drive incase but are
> there any thoughts on this?
>
> Thanks,
> Chuck

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